QLD floods

[vaughan]

I hope that our Queensland members, especially our esteemed Moderator and Admin, AMDave, are managing to survive the horrendous floods in the Australian state of Queensland. 75% of the land mass of that huge state have been declared flood zone disaster areas. That's a truly amazing statistic in itself - an area the size of the country of France.

David's town of Ipswich is in the flood affected area in the South East Queensland area and we wish him good luck and pray that he and his family are safe.

More info here Queensland floods

[AMDave]

Gladly I can say my family are ok. We are up the side of a valley upstream from Ipswich.

Yesterday we awoke to flooding across the valley and impassable roads. Looking out the window we saw the Bremer valley was up to 2 miles wide with with water. It was quite a shock.

From our vantage point we watched rescue choppers flying through the valley all day searching for people in trouble and lifted families out of their properties, flying them into the emergency response center at the local school.

Those pilots were absolutely incredible. The wind was very strong and the rain was pounding and they held their aircraft as still as a concrete post as they plucked people to safety.

Just North and West of us is where the freak flash flooding and sudden loss of life occurred in the Lockyer Valley, quite literally on the other side of the hill.

Incredibly this morning we awoke to a green valley floor, but we knew it had flowed down to join the water from the Lockyer Valley and the outflow from the Wivenhoe Dam. Turning on the television revealed the dreaded but anticipated news of the huge flood levels pouring through homes and businesses downstream.

Routes in to Brisbane by road and rail are completely cut off at the moment. The roads and railways, and even some of the stations, are submerged at several points.

We have checked that all of our other family are ok. Although a few of them have been displaced by the rising waters, everyone is accounted for. The river has apparently peaked at Ipswich, so we will check on one of their houses tomorrow which we are hoping will not have been affected and then we will be off to help out somewhere until I can get into the city and help out at work.

Thanks for your kind thoughts.

Best wishes to anyone else in QLD affected by the floods. I hope you are all ok.

[Dirk Broer]

Hi Dave,
Glad to know you are OK, saw some really scary TV shots. The area afflicted is as large as France and Germany together!

But how about the other aussie members?
lazykiller (not active on the forum),
ded1o1 (never registered on the forum),
Gregg (never registered on the forum),
Game2 (never registered on the forum),
Tim (never registered on the forum),
Troy (never registered on the forum),
Dobz (never registered on the forum),
dublue8 (not active on the forum),
Shigy (never registered on the forum),
declan (never registered on the forum),
WAVE (never registered on the forum),
Raven (never registered on the forum),
Jing (never registered on the forum),
slack1 (not active on the forum),
darron (never registered on the forum),
suhaimi (never registered on the forum),
Lucas Hainsworth (never registered on the forum),
jh247247 (never registered on the forum),
Coredm (never registered on the forum),
and all those I have forgotten because they registered as "International" or "Antarctica" (e.g. DataGod)

[Ototero]

Hi Guys, glad you're safe.
I know you are always "complaining" how hot it is there, but whoever did the rain dance, over did it.
It's almost incomprehensible that an area half the size of Europe is under water.
Good job it's sparsely populated compared to Europe. Even so, any loss must be terrible.

[BlackAdder]

Dave, Very glad to hear you and your family are safe from the flooding , I have been hearing about it on the morning news on the radio and it sounds awful. God Bless

[AMDave]

Thanks BA.

We tried to get into town to help out last week but the roads and bridges were still closed at the time and the railway was washed out.
We managed to get in on the weekend and help out to gut some of the damaged homes and help them rescue some of their belongings.
Honestly it was gut-wrenching - for so many reasons.
From the end of the day when we walked back out of the area I was completely speechless for the rest of the weekend.

As the roads opened up over the weekend the call went out for people to get back to work as soon as possible, where they could, to keep the ball rolling, or all the balls in the air so to speak.
I was able to drive in for a couple of days until the public transport systems started to come back online.
Now my train goes right through several of the worst affected areas.
I can't help but think of all those people and the long road ahead of them.

But so many many people have come from near and far to help out.
My wife and I were helping out alongside people who had driven hundreds of kilometers to contribute their time and muscle power.
It was so incredibly humbling and yet so inspiring and experience.
This is clearly one of the things we learned since the 1974 floods.
(Queenslanders, I mean. I was not here then and yet barely a month or two would pass without it being spoken of)

Everyone is working together make it better.
We know that it has to be done and as quickly as possible.
I have seen television pictures today of school classrooms and houses and some businesses that are almost completely re-furbished already.

And yet my train rolls past many hundreds of homes that are damaged and gutted.
It will be a long road for so many.
Having met some of those directly affected in what little is left of their homes, I have no complaints or ills.
Well, other than I would have liked to be able to do more work with them rather than go back to work so soon.
But it is the way it is and there are so many people continuing to help out it is a wonder to see.
It transpires amazement and lands right in the middle of pure 'awe'.
Queenslanders are awesome.
Let that be written and remembered.
If I ever need help, I want to be right here.

I hope all our fellow DC'ers have come out of it ok.

We had some quite bad storms the last few days and
The river broke its banks again in our valley but downstream the river is still so swollen it made little difference.
Tomorrow morning there is a 'king' tide due so there are many watching the river.
Everyone is quite nervous watching water levels, weather radars and the sky and calming children.

It will be like that for a while.
Things won't quite go back to the way they were, but in time there will be healing and change and cool sunny days.

Fingers crossed it doesn't happen again this season.
But as much as I loath to say it ... it [very bad weather] has been forecast as quite likely.

[AMDave]

Sorry.
I just meant to say thanks, but it all came pouring out !

[Tamaster]

Our hearts are with you and your countrymen Dave...

[Dirk Broer]

Last flood we had here in the Netherlands (apart from the one where an old river dike broke through) strangely enough afflicted the highest part of the country, southern Limburg. There the Maas river comes into the country and it had been a very lazy river for some 30 years or so. So people had started to build their house in the so-called "uiterwaarden", country adjacent to the river, where in former times the river would flow in cases of very high water. Only person not the suffer from the flood appeared to be a German who had done his homework: his house could rise along poles on the corners of his house and the whole structure remained floating and anchored. I live at 52°N 4.5°E and the area is thought to be just below sea level, so I have my computers on the 2nd and 3rd floor, just in case.